FG denies budgeting N60b for farmers’ cellphones

The Federal Government has again denied the report making the rounds that it has set aside N60 billion to fund cellphones for farmers in the country.

The Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, on Monday said there is no N60 billion anywhere to be used to buy cellphones.`

He also said government will not be involved in direct procurement of phones neither will there be contracts to import phones from China or anywhere else.

He added that the type of phones that will be purchased and the mode of its distribution had not been determined.

The minister’s clarification follows series of criticism that had trailed the comment made by the Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of agriculture, Ibukun Odusote, in December last year that the government is planning to buy 10 million telephone handsets worth about N60 billion from China and the United States for free distribution to rural farmers across the country.

“We are talking about 10 million handsets, each handset would be costing between N4, 000 or N6, 000 because it is in large number. We are not going to buy in pieces like that. We will buy directly from the manufacturing companies. We have agreement with some organisations in China and some in the United States, they are going to provide all these handsets for us because they are also interested in investing in the Agricultural sector in Nigeria. So you have the idea and estimate of the cost,” the permanent secretary said at a function in Lagos.

Many actions call for questions the mindset of the professionals who drafted and are implementing the transformation agenda policy thrust of Goodluck Jonathan administration. Reading in the newspapers about the federal government’s plan to distribute 10 million mobile phones to Nigerian farmers brings to the fore again another reason why many Nigerians are optimally skeptical about the intention of the government to address the problems facing the populace. It is also the manifestation of the shallowness of the thinking of our policy makers in buying any proposal from the profiteering private sector’s shylocks.

The burden placed on many employees to generate business ideas that will help them hit the scandalous targets set for them by the employers make many of them to come up with bizarre proposals. These people always look up to the government at all levels to buy their proposals because they realize that this is where free money flows. This possibly accounts for the proposal written by one of the ‘geniuses’ in a telecom company which is sold to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Most of these proposals are packaged in the most deceptive ways that can ever be thought of. The unspoken detail of this proposal is to import 10 million cheap mobile sets from China and other Schengen nations, distribute among those they call farmers, and abandon them to the fate of using their meager incomes to load the phones with the expensive air time; this is how the telecom companies intend to make their money.

How the minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina who appears to be the only blink of hope in the current pack of ministers agreed to the proposal is a source of worry for many who have been observing the accomplishments of this scholar and an alumnus of OAU Ile-Ife and Purdue University in the United States since he was appointed the minister about two years ago. Mobile telephone should be at the base of the government’s priority list for the rural farmers. There are several pressing needs that government needs to address in the lives and careers of the long neglected drivers of the agricultural sector of the economy.

Published statistics reveals that close to 50 percent of the harvested food crops perishes because of the poor condition of the country’s access roads. The farmers are left to leak the wounds of their loss because half of what they labor for cannot get to the markets. Closely related to this is the seasonal waste that most farmer experience because of lack of facilities for processing and preservation. Most developed economies have fresh agricultural products all-round the year and at about the same prices unlike in Nigeria when during the season, consumers will buy at some ridiculously low prices afterwards at very expensive prices. These are areas that one thinks the government will pay attention with the provision of road networks, and processing and preservation facilities strategically located for farmers in all areas to sell their produce. Government instead of partnering with phone companies can encourage food processing companies to plant these facilities across the country.

The issue of the epileptic electricity supply is a major problem facing the country. Any investment in the agricultural sector without stable power supply is as good as fetching water in the baskets. This issue of phone is again laughable when one thinks of how the federal government expects the famers to charge the cells for the handset. Communication is good but it is the least of problems facing the farmers. Before cell phones and when Nigerian government was working, the cocoa and other produce farmers and merchants have access to all the information and privileges attached to their business, as illiterate as most of them were; they knew what the produce grades and prices were in the international markets.

Subsidy is the mainstay of the agriculture in the United States and this is the reason the country swims in surplus when it comes to food. Government encourages farmers to produce at the maximum capacity even when the market is saturated by buying the excess from them. How Nigerian government is not thinking in this direction should be better imagined. Subsidies in the thinking of those who drive them in Nigeria are avenues for stealing from the treasury and depriving the public of the desired benefits; this must be addressed for any progress to be made in this sector.

When the minister says the phone scheme will encourage young graduates to pick interest in farming, the question that came to mind is that, how many Nigerian graduates don’t have cell phones? Most of the rural farmers that the ministry claims will be the beneficiaries of this Greek gift have cell phones except in areas where there is no access or where the telecom installations have been vandalized and looted. Farmers who make good money from their produce need no public private partnership before buying cell phones. Government should halt this hollow package and provide farmers with more seedlings, fertilizer and loans for their business. This dubious proposal should not be allowed to fly beyond the office of Dr. Adesina and the people in the private sector, who initiated it.
Sunday Odeleke.
Houston, TX USA.

Not for farmers but for the whole Nigerians!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ransome

Farmers need d phones e.g wen rain does not fall, d minister of agric must be informed to do something about failing rain,or during harmattan if there is outbreak of fire in d farm ,d minister must be informed promptly otherwise firefighters will get there only after everything is devastated.Those proposing 60b naira for cell phones for farmers does dat for their stomach.